The Tertiary igneous province of N.W. Scotland

Wednesday February 11, 2015 | 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm

Good news…. Dr Ian Sutton, a former geology lecturer at Nottingham University has agreed to talk to us for the February meeting. Ian is a member of SDGS as well as field secretary of the East Midlands Geological Society. He is an accomplished speaker and a couple of years ago gave an interesting presentation on New Zealand’s earthquakes.

Ian’s talk will cover the tertiary provinces of the west coast of Scotland.

The Tertiary igneous province of N.W. Scotland

The western isles of Scotland have been a magnetic attraction to geologists from the days of Hutton right through to the present. Not only do they display the results of the UK’s most recent igneous activity but they also have a tremendous variety of both metamorphic and sedimentary rocks in a relatively small area.

In this talk we will investigate the reasons for the Tertiary igneous events but also visit some of the other geological and geomorphological highlights which grace this region, particularly on Skye, Rum, Arran and Ardnamurchan. The islands themselves are a naturalist’s haven, particularly in spring with carpets of wild flowers and a wealth of nesting birds, some of which are extremely rare elsewhere.

GCR block – Tertiary Igneous (TER-IGN)

Tertiary Igneous

Block Description

The GCR sites selected for this GCR Block represent a major episode of intrusive and extrusive igneous activity in north-west Britain that occurred during Palaeocene and early Eocene times (c. 63–52 Ma) that accompanied continental separation and lithospheric attenuation during the early stages of the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean.

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